ALJ Students Learn About Patterns Of Hatred

CLARK — Arthur L. Johnson High School social studies teacher Victoria Marchetta started the academic year in her Holocaust & Genocide course by challenging students to think critically and examine assumptions concerning issues of hatred and its social manifestations.

In the first week’s study, students considered how patterns of hatred and dehumanization become rationalized within individuals and in society. Students were exposed to a documentary that featured a child that engaged in hateful social behavior as a possible result of being raised in a traumatic environment. Marchetta then asked her students to analyze hate manifestations in current events that could be associated with the featured documentary.

In the photograph above, Victoria Marchetta (far right) poses with some of her current Holocaust & Genocide course students (left to right) Jacqueline Foley, Christina Bonaccorso, Jake Egner, and Michele Brocato. (Photo courtesy of Clark Public Schools)